Love Can Bloom
by MJDM95
Summary: In the grim darkness of the near future, there is only war. Mutants are hunted and persecuted on a global scale. The United Nations has fallen. The central government has dedicated its resources into holding together what remains of human civilization together albeit under an iron fist. The X-men is no more. The mutants left, fight back but they are scattered and leaderless.


**Nova Yourke (New York) – 2028 AD.**

The city that never sleeps as they call it. Everything that it once was and stood for was now a phantom. A memory.

It had been that way ever since mankind tore itself apart when it tried to eradicate the growing number of mutants at the start of the 2020s. Millions perished. In its place was a dark and desolate ruin stretching on for miles. A haven for mutants who'd gone underground and the very worst mankind had spawned.

A boy and a girl crouched beneath a pile of rubble. Both were no older than 17. You could tell they were exhausted and hungry. Dark eye rings hung beneath their eyes and the girl clutched her belly a few times while hiding. Above them a swarm of gunships zipped by, filled to the brim with soldiers and maybe even a Sentinel.

The girl let out a gasp as the thought of discovery began to overwhelm her. The boy turned and placed a reassuring hand on her arm and shook his head. This seemed to cheer her up. Moments later the pair were up and traversing the ruins of Nova Yourke or 'New York' as the people from the past once called it by.

As the pair were taking turns gulping down the remains of canned tuna, a glaring beam of light fell upon them startling the life out of the two. The boy raised his hands in defiance, spikes as sharp as steel erupted all along both his arms. The girl's body began shifting into that of metallic alloy. Within seconds black suited figures in futuristic military BDUs with gas masks were upon them.

"On the fucking ground muties!"

"Down on the floor, freaks!"

"Last warning!"

The teenage male flexed his biceps once and a flurry of spikes embedded themselves into the lead soldier and the one to his right, punching them off their feet. They would live, a bullet couldn't even pierce through the first layer of ceramite alloy what more an organic spike.

"Return fire!" yelled someone and all guns went up, short controlled bursts. The girl in metallic form stood over her companion, determined to defend him.

"Argh, changing mags!" warned a soldier.

"Frag out!" the fist sized object bounced and rolled between the girl's legs. It detonated with a solid _WHUMP_! Kicking up dirt and rubble from the ruins. As the smoke cleared the sight of two figures moaning in pain greeted the men.

The soldier who had been shot angrily ripped the spike out. He studied the inch long object before tossing it aside in disgust.

"Ey, sarge you wanna get that looked at?"

A soldier rasped through his mask. A white patch with a red cross wrapped around his shoulder indicated him as "Corpsman".

He shook his head and whipped out his M9 sidearm. Stomping towards the male mutant still on the ground rolling in pain from eating all that shrapnel. Promptly he discharged two rounds into the mutant's head, brain matter and chunks of bloody skull fragments littered the floor. Turning to the girl he kicked her side, hard, further adding on to her distress.

The men converged upon their leader. Overhead a Vtol chopper, probably their pickup zipped by before circling the area.

"I want his body taken to Area-3 for processing," Grunted the leader as he pressed his hands to his abdomen and winced. Just because he survived didn't mean it hurt.

"And the girl?" inquired one with 'Corporal' rank.

"Area-2 for screening and experimenting," The men nodded and roughly hauled her away. She could do nothing but weep as the dead eyes of her friend? brother? Lover? Stared right back at her.

As the soldiers ambled away, one remained behind. He pondered behind the events that had led to the world to become what it is today. Man turned on Man all because the other party had a "mutation".

He wouldn't pity them though, like the rest he was brainwashed since young to abhor those who were not fully homo-sapien. He simply wondered why they couldn't co-exist. If people of different beliefs could, why not-

"Banks!" He turned sharply in fright, his HUD identified the man before him as his squadmate.

"Yo," he replied.

"Cmon get your ass in gear, bird's dusting off in 3." As they began walking back the one known as Banks stopped and kicked the corpse of the dead mutant his sergeant had executed earlier on. "Fucking muties,"

"I hear you brah,"

Several meters away hidden within the shadows of an overturned M1 Abram tank two figures broke their cover followed by several more from the surrounding area.

The leader looked around before signalling the others to move out. Immediately the others began silently breaking into nearby shops and houses for supplies leaving two figures leaving only. A man and a woman.

Sierra, a 5 foot 4' athletic brunette just shy of 21 gnashed her teeth as she approached her leader. "Why?' her voice held both anger and sadness.

"Why what?" his voice was nonchalant, feigning innocence. She unsheathed her katana and pressed herself face to face with her superior. "You know damn well what I'm talking about. We could've saved them Grant! Helping other mutants, isn't that what we do?"

Grant snarled in frustration.

"You think I don't know that? I wanted to do something- anything but we do NOT pick fights we cannot win. They have sentinels ready for support. We don't have the numbers to hold our ground most of the guys are back in _Maanharken _(Manhatten). For now we scavenge and scout the area for mapping. Now put that thing away." He gestured to her sword of which she did so with a huff.

"We leave no mutant behind, you made that a core value of our group. Haven't you forgotten?"

Sierra." He sighed and established eye contact with the livid woman. "If we tried to save em' those damn sapiens are gonna tear us a new asshole and the 'Scorpions' will fall apart. We'll be back. I promise. We'll save everyone and, and those who hunted us, those who slaughtered us like animals we're gonna make em' pay. Every last one of those 'homo sapiens.'

Grant Elijah Woods was the leader of the mutant rebel group based in Nova Yourk. He named them the 'Striking Scorpions' due to his obsession toward Games Workshop's Warhammer lore.

There were hundreds of thousands of mutant factions scattered across the wasteland of Earth. Hundreds alone based in Nova Yourk. Grant's faction led one of the top 100 factions in the North American continent with 400 members and counting.

Their jobs were to simply set up listening outposts and reconnaissance and killing off the occasional human patrols snooping around their safe houses. Once an opportunity presents itself the Striking Scorpions would to co-ordinate with other factions in making strategic strikes such as supply raid or assassinating a HVT.

Rarely do the Scorpions leave any survivors for the humans share no love for their kind either.

They were the bane of human soldiers stationed within 20 states from Nova Yourke to Orhion (Ohio).

Sierra straightened the sling running from her shoulder and stomped off. She settled down at a pier after thirty minutes of walking. There she sat, legs tucked in towards herself and watched the stars.

A split second blinding flash of light and the smell of ozone wafted in the air. A tall dark figure propped himself down beside Sierra. He pulled his hood down and ran a hand through the mass of curly hair fixed upon his head.

For a whole minute the two spoke nothing, simply admiring the heavens. Once in a while a Sentinel carrier or a VTOL would mar the beauty of the night sky as they streamed back and forth from the nearby human base.

Finally Sierra turned her head towards the figure. "Nice sweater, where'd you get it?"

He inspected the fabric of his new clothing before shrugging. "What this? Found it just now in a departmental store – or what it used to be."

"Seems to be in perfect condition. What brand?"

"UniQLO."

"Never heard of it,"

"Course' you don't, your generation don't even know what an Xbox is!" He threw his hand up in indignation.

She shrugged and tied her hair up in a ponytail. As she did so she threw a question at the man.

"Let me guess, Grant's worried sick and he wants me back at base camp ASAP?"

"Nah, scavenge doesn't end till' midnight. Just wanted to see how you're coping, s'all," His Boston accent hung thickly with each word enunciated.

"Gee what'd you think Bobby? Those were kids down there. Those fucking animals."

She gripped the plank so hard her knuckles paled. The man now known as Bobby leaned forward and grasped her arm. She made eye contact with him as he spoke, "It's a fucked up world we live in, and sometimes we gotta make sacrifices you know? It's either them or the whole lot of us,"

"Doesn't mean we have to like it."

The conversation ended right then and there. Bobby stood up, dusted his apparel. "See you at base camp," he was gone in a flash. Literally leaving behind the faint smell of ozone where he warped himself back to camp.

Sierra shook her head and hacked at the smell. "You're al lheart Bob."

"And then what happened?" the interrogator in formal black pressed on. PVT Fitch gestured his head towards PFC Langley.

"After the mutant male turned hostile and incapacitated the squad leader and another member we, opened fire."

"And, who gave the order to fire?"

"Uh, I'm not sure. Second Sergeant Gibbs and Private Langley here was on the floor. A-and the order came from the uh, back so I'm assuming the corpsman or Private Boyka."

"And as you poured fire it says here in your report – yours and the other squad members the female mutant we have in custody was capable of turning her body into solid metal."

"Yeah and bulletproof too. I think I must've reloaded like twice."

"Interesting. Tell me, how long did you and your squad take to subdue her?"

"Uhm, I'm not sure. We took like thirty seconds? Twenty?" Fitch looked to Langley for help.

"Yeah it felt like we took thirty seconds." Supported Langley. The interrogator nodded and gestured for Fitch to continue.

"Yeah we took short controlled bursts mainly towards the chest and the neck area but nothing happened. I remember Private Boyka firing his M27 on full auto he must've pumped close to 300 rounds during that 30 seconds. It didn't do shit but the strange thing was, neither the male nor the female mutants were fighting back. They just stood there tanking our shots. Then Second Sergeant Gibbs recovered on his feet. He ended the fight with a well-placed grenade and proceeded to execute the dying mutant – the uh, male one."

The interrogator nodded. He read through their reports and all of them supported each other's version. This debriefing was just for the record.

"And so from there you tagged and bagged MT-105 and took the first chopper back here. Correct?"

"Yes sir," both nodded respectfully.

"Well that's the end of this debriefing. This is Major Woods, end of recording E110." With that, he proceeded to turn off the recorder and camera. Turning to the two soldiers before him he allowed them to leave, regroup with their squad and await for the next deployment.

Fitch and Langley shared a couple of laughs as they made their way back. They were ambushed by the sergeant and Boyka, all 4 goofing off and howling with laughter.

"Right let's get some chow, get drunk and fuck some. Tomorrow we get the day off since we bagged ourselves a mute!" the men cheered causing a loud racket in their barracks.

"Cause we some dope motherfuckers!"

For Fitch he thought back to the words of DI Barnes, "Just another glorious day in the Corps!"


End file.
